INDIVISIBILITY AND INTERDEPENDENCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS STRESSED BY SPEAKERS AS THIRD COMMITTEE DISCUSSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS MATTERS CONTINUES
Press Release
GA/SHC/3501
INDIVISIBILITY AND INTERDEPENDENCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS STRESSED BY SPEAKERS AS THIRD COMMITTEE DISCUSSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS MATTERS CONTINUES
19981109 Hunger was a constraint to development, not only today, but well into the future, the representative of the World Food Programme (WFP) told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) this morning as it continued its consideration of human rights matters.Understanding the two-way relationship between poverty and hunger was the first step to relieving the poor of their hunger, and pave the way for their full enjoyment of human rights, she said. As the United Nations commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the incontrovertible truth that human rights were indivisible and interdependent had emerged: the full enjoyment of one set of rights depended on the realization of the other.
Agreeing that the relationship between human rights, democracy and development were intrinsically linked, the representative of Malaysia said countries should not pick one aspect of human rights over another, particularly civil and political rights over economic, social and cultural rights. There was an urgent need to rectify the gross imbalance between the two sets of rights. Considering the situation of developing countries, the right to development should receive priority.
The representative of the Russian Federation said that human rights had begun to occupy a more obvious place in the maintenance of peace and security. With the attention of the world once again focused on the Balkans, he said instruments of force would not solve the situation in Kosovo. A political solution was the only way forward. There should be negotiations that would lead to the granting of a wide level of autonomy to the region, while not threatening the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The representative of Israel said her country felt a particular solidarity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which grew out of the same impulses that had spawned the State of Israel. It was the horror of the Holocaust, the wanton slaughter of human life and the destruction of human dignity that had forced mankind to stop and take preemptive action to prevent any such violations of humanity in the future. That impulse led to the establishment of the Universal Declaration.
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Statements were also made by the representatives of Viet Nam, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Finland, Costa Rica and Angola, as well as by a representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
The Committee will meet again at 3 p.m. today to continue its consideration of human rights questions.
Committee Work Programme
The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) met this morning to continue consideration of alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and human rights situations and reports of special rapporteurs and representatives. (For background information on reports before the Committee, see Press Releases GA/SHC/3494 of 4 November and GA/SHC/3500 of 6 November.)
Statements
NGUYEN THI NHA (Viet Nam) said that the need for a balanced approach to all aspects of human rights was urgent. Selective interpretation or application of human rights would not only demean their value, but would undermine the well-being of individuals in parts of the world that were still engulfed by age-old hatreds and animosities. There was no intrinsic contradiction between the rights of the individual and those of the community, and there should be no artificial separation between those two sets of rights. However, in treating human rights, the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be taken into account and fully respected.
It was also important to recognize the special importance of the right to development, a universal and integral part of the fundamental human rights, she said. While the eradication of poverty and the enhancement of development were the responsibilities of individual States, the United Nations system had a key conceptual and promotional role to play, such as projecting the need for higher levels of growth and accelerating development.
The General Assembly would, this year, consider for adoption the draft declaration on the right and responsibility of individuals, groups and organs of society to promote and protect universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms, she said. While recognizing the importance of the declaration, she reiterated that the primary responsibility and duty to promote and protect human rights lay with the State; that no human rights and fundamental freedoms referred to in the declaration should impair or contradict the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or other international human rights instruments; and that nothing in the declaration should impede the proper functioning of domestic law consistent with the United Nations Charter and other international obligations in the field of human rights.
ENIO CORDEIRO (Brazil) said the adoption of the two Covenants had set the standards for human rights promotion and protection. The focus of attention had since then gradually shifted to their implementation. Through the United Nations, an important set of conventional and non-conventional mechanisms to monitor situations had revealed a persistent pattern of human
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rights violations. Those mechanisms were authoritative instruments on which the international community relied in helping to redress those situations. His Government supported the comprehensive review of human rights mechanisms that the Commission on Human rights was currently undertaking. That exercise would benefit the rationalization of their methods of work.
Monitoring mechanisms, both at the national and international level, were important tools in lifting the veil of secrecy and deceit that frequently shrouded human rights abuses all over the world, he said. However, the start of a dialogue with international mechanisms had been resisted, or even refused, on the alleged grounds that those mechanisms only served the purpose of monitoring at the expense of international cooperation for the promotion of human rights. But the contradiction between monitoring and cooperation was not so significant. Monitoring was, in fact, a vital instrument, which, with other forms of cooperation, helped to promote the conditions under which human rights could flourish.
He called for monitoring to be strictly based on humanitarian grounds and said international monitoring could not be established based on purely political grounds. Otherwise, monitoring would not serve the purpose it was meant to serve.
NAIF BANDAR AL-SUDAIRY (Saudi Arabia) said human rights in Saudi Arabia were a fact of life and practice, in addition to being a divine law. There was no discrimination between peoples; all were equal no matter what their race, religion or belief. Saudi Arabia had joined the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. It had established a special committee to study all other treaties for eventual accession. It would also continue to support the United Nations voluntary funds which were dedicated to protecting and supporting human rights.
On the national level, Saudi Arabia advocated human rights by including the subject in its school curriculum and in its social programmes, and through the news media in accordance with the spirit of the treaties it had signed, he said. It had enacted laws that guaranteed the rights of its citizens and others who resided in the country, according to its legislation, which specified that human rights were for all human beings. Employment opportunities were equally available to all and education was guaranteed on all levels. The Government also guaranteed the rights of the millions of workers from different countries working in Saudi Arabia, in accordance with the basic laws of governance. They were also entitled to the same privileges of Saudi citizens, such as exemption from taxes and the right to transfer their savings to their countries without any restrictions.
RASTAM MOHD. ISA (Malaysia) said his Government believed the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action were major achievements, which had relinked
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the intrinsic relationship between human rights, democracy and development. The most important challenge was political. There was a need to reconcile divergent views on human rights.
He said many believed human rights were used as a conditionality to achieve specific political ends. That was disquieting and could create mistrust and suspicion. The Secretariat should integrate human rights in all its activities, but in doing so, should not impose any conditionality on the legitimate activities of developing countries. Also, there should not be a one-way approach to human rights. Countries should not pick one aspect of human rights over another, particularly the civil and political over economic, social and cultural rights. They should be practised in their entirety.
His Government believed the approach of cooperation, with dialogue and good faith, was more conducive, he said, adding that confrontation only engendered mistrust. Certain States lacked institutional structures and needed the help of the international community. The traditional approaches of monitoring human rights, such as field missions and monitoring, could complement each other. There was an urgent need to rectify the gross imbalance that existed between civil and political rights in relation to economic, social and cultural rights. That imbalance should be remedied, as envisaged in the Vienna outcome, which reaffirmed the linkages between all the rights. Considering the situation of developing countries, the right to development should receive priority. The international community and other agencies should give special consideration to providing assistance to realize those. His Government was concerned that official development assistance (ODA) had fallen in recent years, which had serious implications for the realization of the right to development.
While welcoming the various appointments of special rapporteurs, special representatives and independent experts, he said there was a need to avoid duplicating mandates; that needed greater rationalization. The elements of effectiveness and credibility were important too. Effectiveness depended on credibility, and credibility depended on acceptance. The scope for improving the human rights machinery remained vague, including the special procedures. The number of mandates at a given time could be limited. Since the special procedures were practical manifestations of the will of the international community, due regard should be given to the prevailing belief that economic, social and cultural rights were given due attention. The cardinal principle of universality, indivisibility and interdependence of human rights must be the guiding light for all efforts.
SERGEY LAVROV (Russian Federation) said that human rights had begun to occupy a more obvious place in the maintenance of peace and security, and that such an approach was justified. He also drew attention to the conclusions of a number of international human rights treaty bodies that said sanctions regimes should take into consideration the human rights of the peoples that would be affected by sanctions.
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The attention of the world was once again focused on the Balkans, he said. Instruments of force would not solve the situation in Kosovo. A political solution was the only way forward. There should be negotiations that would lead to the granting of a wide level of autonomy to the region, while not threatening the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. No other way would benefit peace and human rights.
In Afghanistan, the restoration of human rights was also possible only through political negotiation, he said. A major role should be played in that regard by the United Nations. Another region of great instability was the Great Lakes region in Central Africa. One of the greatest issues in that region was the question of impunity, which must not go unanswered. He said he was also encouraged by the human rights situation in Iran, where the authorities seemed to be making progress in their search for a way forward, and he encouraged them to continue to expand human rights in the country.
MARJATTA RASI (Finland) said minority people continued to face discrimination in all parts of the world. That was the plight of the Roma people in Europe. In Europe, minority issues were dealt both within the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Important aspects of the OSCE norms for the protection of national minorities as well as the Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities had been included in the Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities, which entered into force earlier this year. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which also entered into force this year, had added to the protection of minorities. Her Government, which had ratified both instruments, wanted to see stronger standards on those issues.
The identity of minorities was often on the defence, partly as a result of pressures from the majority population, she said. However, it was evident minorities themselves, too, must respect democratic principles and allow for the full enjoyment of all human rights by each individual belonging to the group.
Cultural or religious traditions should not be invoked as an excuse for not doing so, she said, highlighting women's rights as traditional practices sometimes affected the rights of women and girls. Special attention should be paid to minority women and girls, since they were often subjected to multiple discrimination. Minority women were in an especially weak position in relation to property, work, education and health care, as compared to the majority in society. Girls belonging to minorities could in many cases be considered the weakest of the weak and their rights were limited or neglected in many different ways. Concluding, she said women had an important role in maintaining and passing on the cultural values and traditions of the group to the new generation.
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ERELLA HADAR (Israel) said Israel felt a particular solidarity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which grew out of the same impulses that spawned the State of Israel. It was the horror of the Holocaust, the wanton slaughter of human life and the destruction of human dignity that forced mankind to stop and take preemptive action to prevent any such violations of humanity in the future. That impulse led to the establishment of the Universal Declaration. But the bond was more than historical. If Israel was to be a symbol of humanity's better instincts, its founders knew they must embody those instincts, enacting in practice the principles set down in the Universal Declaration.
Fundamental human rights and equality were codified into the basic legal system of the State, she said. One of the guardians of those rights was the Supreme Court, which was given the additional role of a high court of justice. The Supreme Court had taken numerous initiatives to promote the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration. It was also in a unique position to deal with issues affecting Israel's particular situation, and it often heard petitions brought by Palestinians concerning the acts of Israeli authorities in the territories under administration.
Honouring the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration, Israel was also marking the start of a new curriculum in all schools, focusing on respecting the rights of others, she said. A great triumph of human rights in the past five years had been the peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians, first signed in 1993 and implemented through a series of further agreements, the most recent of which was the Wye River Memorandum. Peace was a gateway for human rights, including those advanced in Vienna. However, after 50 years of independence, the threat of war still prevailed in Israel. In that context, she was disappointed that in comments last week, the representative of Lebanon contrived to connect human rights on the one hand with the defensive measures that Israel was forced to take in response to terrorist attacks and bombardment of its northern border from Lebanese territory.
MONA HAMAN, of the World Food Programme (WFP), said that as the United Nations commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an incontrovertible truth had emerged; namely, that human rights were indivisible and interdependent. The full enjoyment of one depended on the realization of the other. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action had also reaffirmed the right to development as a universal right and an integral part of human rights. The WFP also considered access to adequate levels of food a prerequisite for the exercise of the right to development and to the enjoyment of human rights in general. Hunger was a constraint to development not only today but well into the future.
Given that hunger and poverty affected women and children disproportionately, her organization saw women as critical to the solution to
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both as they shouldered the major share of responsibilities for household food security. Experience had demonstrated that resources in the hands of women led to a greater nutritional benefit for children. Thus, WFP programmes had included training to mainstream gender focus and promote equal rights, particularly, equal access of women to resources employment, markets and trade. Understanding the two-way relationship between poverty and hunger was essential to the formulation of appropriate policy and programme responses at the national and international levels. The first step was thus to relieve the poor of their hunger and, thereby, pave the way for their full enjoyment of human rights.
KERSTIN TRONE, Deputy Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said her organization was fully involved in United Nations system-wide initiatives seeking to strengthen the importance of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. It took an active part in the 1998 substantive session of the Economic and Social Council and participated in the Sub-group on Human Rights of the United Nations Development Group. The Fund was implementing the Vienna outcome in its policies and programmes and particularly in the activities it was undertaking as part of the five-year review of the International Conference on Population and Development, known as ICPD+5.
The UNFPA focused on the reproductive rights of women and men and on the promotion of gender equality, equity and the empowerment of women, she said. It emphasized that a rights-based approach to population must focus on meeting the needs of individuals rather than on meeting demographic targets alone. In several countries, the UNFPA was providing assistance to strengthen legal systems to ensure the promotion and enforcement of statutes to protect human rights. Particular attention was given to increasing women's knowledge of their rights before the law. In a number of countries, the Fund was supporting activities to educate women and adolescents about their reproductive rights as well as the civil and political rights to which they were entitled. The UNFPA also carried out its programming in the area of population and development in the context of the right to development and, within its mandate, the eradication of poverty. It had recently completed a study of the impact of the financial and economic crisis on population and reproductive health in four Asian countries -- Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand.
NURY VARGAS (Costa Rica) said that her Government stressed tolerance and pluralism, and those were indivisible for the promotion of human rights. Intolerance had caused many wars. Tolerance was what mediated the relationships between old and young, between city and rural persons, between men and women. To fight intolerance, each party had to yield a little, each one giving up something, and thus restoring peace for its own people. Freedom of thought meant people thought and acted differently; people chose their own religion, based on their own conscience. For its part, Costa Rica favoured
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pluralism, where people could follow any religion. It had a constitutional democracy, where different parties competed for power. It had no army. Yet, all Costa Ricans knew that the peace they enjoyed had to be defended by the practice of democracy on a daily basis.
Democracy was based on people coming together and reaching agreement, so that progress could be achieved, she said. The peace her country enjoyed was based on social justice -- the provision of housing, health, and employment. Though her country had no wars, it had suffered from natural disasters. Thus, the national budget for transporting agricultural products and for tourism, for example, had to be diverted to deal with those emergencies. Many people had been devastated; natural disasters had destroyed bridges, highways, and houses. That meant unemployment. People had disappeared and died. Unfortunately, natural disasters could not be predicted, nor avoided.
JOSEFA COELHO DA CRUZ (Angola) said that although her country was suffering under the effects of instability, her Government had not minced efforts aimed at the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. In her Government's last report to the Human Rights Committee, there was clear proof of compliance with the provisions of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the optional protocols. The country had also recently set up a national human rights commission, made up of representatives from all sectors of Angolan civil society.
She said the Angolan Government was dismayed and astonished at the allegations levelled by Abdelfattah Amor, Special Rapporteur on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, in his report, in which he said the Angolan Armed Forces had massacred 21 Christians, including a pastor. The accusations were totally false and baseless. The Angolan Government had never received any complaint from any religious institution about the alleged massacre. Nor had any substantive evidence been submitted regarding the identity of the victims or the specific area of occurrence.
Angola had a good record as far as human rights was concerned, she said. It was a responsible State that had always fought for the protection of individual freedoms, regardless of race, beliefs or religion. The Government also could not remain indifferent in the face of the content of the report by Roberto Garreton, Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The situation in that country could not be considered in a simplistic manner. There had been an unprecedented onslaught of foreign troops causing deaths and injuries, and the exodus of civilians under the pursuit of armed troops, which crossed the borders of neighbouring countries.
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The aggression against that country by Rwanda and Uganda was a serious threat to the integrity and sovereignty of that country, she said. Under such circumstances, certain countries, among them Angola, acceded to the request of military assistance by the Congolese authorities. The armed forces of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, which constituted regional allied forces, had not intervened in support of any given regime, but in defence of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a Southern African Development Community member State. Furthermore, charges of indiscriminate bombings of the civilian populations in certain cities were without evidence, and she categorically denied those allegations.
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